
NSF Org: |
ECCS Division of Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems |
Recipient: |
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Initial Amendment Date: | February 1, 2010 |
Latest Amendment Date: | February 1, 2010 |
Award Number: | 0954845 |
Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
Program Manager: |
Mona Zaghloul
ECCS Division of Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems ENG Directorate for Engineering |
Start Date: | February 1, 2010 |
End Date: | January 31, 2016 (Estimated) |
Total Intended Award Amount: | $400,000.00 |
Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $400,000.00 |
Funds Obligated to Date: |
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History of Investigator: |
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Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
1350 BEARDSHEAR HALL AMES IA US 50011-2103 (515)294-5225 |
Sponsor Congressional District: |
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Primary Place of Performance: |
1350 BEARDSHEAR HALL AMES IA US 50011-2103 |
Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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Parent UEI: |
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NSF Program(s): | CCSS-Comms Circuits & Sens Sys |
Primary Program Source: |
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Program Reference Code(s): |
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Program Element Code(s): |
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Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.041 |
ABSTRACT
The objective of this CAREER project is to advance optical MEMS technology by developing an ultrawide field-of-view imaging system utilizing biological inspirations. Coherently integrated plans for promoting interests in science and technology at early stages of education, especially in female students, through education and outreach are also included.
Intellectual Merit: This project aims to develop a novel optical MEMS platform interfacing a highly curved array of light-collecting optics with a flat array of optical detectors to accomplish ultrawide field-of-view imaging. A bundle of flexible polymer waveguides, inspired by the unique eye structure of deep-sea amphipods, connect the two arrays optically. In contrast to previously reported wide field-of-view solutions, the proposed scheme allows separate fabrications of the two arrays and enables dynamic tuning of the viewing angle. Biology-scale miniaturization of the proposed structure, based on a new class of polymeric fabrication techniques, is also an objective. The developed technologies will find applications in biomedicine, assistive devices, and environmental imaging/sensing. The combined utilization of optics and MEMS in biomimetic framework will promote transformative developments in future science and technology.
Broader Impacts: The successful demonstration of imaging systems with dynamically tunable, ultrawide field-of-view will generate significant impact on optical MEMS and accelerate the pace of the nascent field of biomimetics greatly. With endoscopic imaging and assistive safety monitoring as their immediate applications, they will benefit human welfare significantly. The knowledge and techniques obtained in the course of the proposed research will create interdisciplinary influences and widen the boundaries of science and technology through the proposed curricula and extra-curricula activities. The easy and interesting theme of the project will appeal to children and female students, encouraging their interests in science and technology.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
The original aim of this CAREER research project is the establishment of microscale fabrication technologies which would lead to the artificial replication of the biological compound eye. The compound eyes of insects and crustaceans have been under intense research mainly for their ability to provide an extremely wide field-of-view from surprisingly small, often sub-millimetric, form-factors.
Biomimetic efforts for their artificial realization have also been intense but a true replication of the compound eye structure at their genuine length-scale had not been accomplished owing mainly to their complexity. Compound eyes achieve their wide field-of-view by deploying several thousand vision units over a highly curved, sometimes hemispherical, surfaces. Anatomically, such a three-dimensional deployment is realized by radially arraying long and thin vision units. Each vision unit consists of a microlens and a matching waveguide connected by a spacer. The microlens is configured to couple only the ray impinging on it normally into the waveguide while rejecting all the oblique incidence, thus enabling the formation of un-overlapped mosaic images.
Each aspect of the compound eye’s structure, however, add difficulties to their artificial realization. Fabrication of a large number of microlens or waveguide is achievable. Simultaneously coupling them into optical alignment is very difficult. Putting the microlens-waveguide pairs into a hemispherical array has been prohibitively challenging.
This project intended to address the technical challenges through the adoption of soft-MEMS technologies. Soft materials, such as the elastomers like PDMS, can be patterned both in two- and three-dimensional forms in a variety of ways. Many of them exhibit high-level transparency and surface smoothness. Furthermore, microstructures made of such soft materials can be dynamically actuated to take even more complex morphologies.
The PI has focused on advancing the soft-MEMS fabrication technology towards the realization of highly curved 3D structures, especially those taking vertical, high aspect-ratio geometries. The efforts have led not only to the establishment of new fabrication techniques but also to the addition of new concepts and devices to the field of soft-MEMS, satisfying the requirements of Intellectual Merit for this NSF-sponsored project.
The exemplary outcomes include the realization of an elastomer-based soft-robotic tentacle actuator that can grab and manipulate delicate and fragile objects safely, as evidenced by its handling of a living ant in Fig. 1, the direct drawing-based fabrication technique which led to the construction of PDMS micropillars with unprecedented aspect-ratios (Fig. 2), and the sugar-based, safe and clean fabrication technique to realize 3D-networks of microchannels in PDMS (Fig. 3). All of these are common in achieving new techniques or functionalities that have been considered unachievable.
The PI has also striven to increase the Broader Impacts of the project, especially by disseminating the results widely over both academic and popular sources and utilize them for attracting public interests on science and technology. For example, the soft-robotic micro-tentacle in Fig. 1 has been highlighted in most popular technology news sources including Popular Science and Popular Mechanics, selected for...
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